


Knowing You

by navaan



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Aftermath, Canon Compliant, F/M, Friendship, Healing, Mental Health Issues, Psychological Trauma, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 10:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from Peeta's life from the moment Coin makes the victors decide about a final Hunger Games. </p><p>Peeta has his own trauma to work through, has to find his place in the new world and decide what he wants to do - and everything leads back to one Katniss Everdeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/gifts).



Even now – with his mind in pieces and his memories a confusing puzzle of truth mixed with fabrications – he knows that Katniss has always been Haymitch's favorite. Still it's a sickening realization that Haymitch will agree with Katniss about this of all things. 

“For Prim,” she says and Peeta's gaze fixes on Haymitch with a frown. Is Haymitch reading her right? Is Haymitch going to agree with this? Does Peeta know what is really going on here?

Because although he has no idea what to think of Katniss anymore - _she's not a mutt_ \- he has a feeling that something is going on under the surface. Beside him Annie is shivering a little. Peeta can't be sure if she is nervous or just feeling a little cold. He doesn't know how to reach out to others anymore.

“I'm with the Mockingjay.” Haymitch's words settle it. And for a moment Peeta is transfixed by the strange emotion flitting through Katniss' eyes.

Something is there under the surface.

Something.

But Peeta isn't sure if it's real or not. He isn't sure about much when it comes to Katniss Everdeen. And if he were, would it change a thing? The decision is made. There will be another Hunger Games. Revenge.

 _For Prim,_ he thinks, watching the other surviving victors around him. For a moment he can hear a frantic voice call: _I volunteer!_ But it's all in his head. _For Prim,_ he thinks again. _To keep her alive._ Katniss had gone into the Games for her sister once. To keep her alive.

But her little sister is dead. “It won't bring her back,” he whispers.

Only Annie is listening. She smiles at him sadly and whispers: “She knows that Peeta. We all know that.” She is shaking now for real, pale and unhappy, but not breaking down. 

Finnick is dead, too.

If that is true, if Katniss _knows_ , then why did they just vote in favor of a final Hunger Games? Another round of children killing children for the chance of one child's survival?

Haymitch's eyes are on him and he stares back. He can't read the man. Again it feels like there's something there, but he can't tell what it is. Haymitch looks away, shaking his head and Peeta thinks he has been sent a message, even if he doesn't understand it.

***

He is standing with other victors and rebels watching the preparations for Snow's execution in silence. 

Peeta isn't sure why it is important that they are all here as witnesses. For the cameras? Since he has woken up in the healing ward nobody has bothered to explain much of anything to him - and up until now he hasn't asked questions either. Once again he had not planned on coming back from the fight and the burn marks on his still tender skin show all too clearly how very close he'd come to dying this time. Has he survived three Hunger Games now? Hysterical laughter wants to bubble up in his throat, but he swallows it down.

When it is about to happen, he realizes he really doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to see this.

Katniss needs a moment before she takes up her position. Her face is a mask of calm, but her eyes are looking forward as if she isn't aware of what is really going on around her. She is focused on something ahead of her – and Peeta thinks it's the task in front of her she's looking at, maybe the future after Snow's death. Snow is only a short distance away. Peeta knows that even in her weakened state, there is no way Katniss will miss her target. He looks at the man who is personally responsible for everything Peeta had been put through as a prisoner of the Capitol and feels nothing for a moment, before snippets of memory come rushing back. 

_If ever your little bride comes back for you, she'll have a nasty little surprise, Peeta._

_You can thank Katniss for all of this, Peeta. She should not have left you behind. She left you and ran away without you. You really think she cares for you?_

Muffled voices, a haze of strange glossy memories. False? He knows the voice, he knows what has been done to him. He also knows how to shake the worst of it by now. 

It seems the fire that burned part of the city hasn't only left a mark on his skin, it has also burned away some of the confusion. Maybe trauma is fighting trauma in the confines of his own mind. He can't be sure. He's not sure that he needs to be sure.

He only knows he doesn't want to be here.

But he forces himself to look at the broken, exhausted man – his enemy, his torturer, a defeated dictator. Nothing. He feels nothing. Not even hatred. Maybe he is too tired to feel hatred anymore? The only thing he can think about is how this death will change nothing for Panem. How is he supposed to believe in a better world when a room full of people has just agreed to have another group of children face their deaths in the Hunger Games? What kind of better world is this supposed to be?

Katniss finally reaches for an arrow and Peeta thinks it's strange how her back seems a little too stiff, her movements a little too tense in all the wrong ways. He's seen her hunt before, right? The only clear memory of her with a bow is from the war zone now. But he _has_ seen her hunt, pulling the bow with a practiced and fluent movement. This is nothing like it.

If he didn't know she's a great shot, he'd say she isn't really focusing on her target at all.

Then it happens so fast that Peeta has barely time to register what is going on. The arrow kills Coin instantly and all hell breaks loose around him. Snow is alive, Coin is dead. He looks over at Katniss, sees her stance, knows she's not going to fight. His muddled memories tell him this might be the first time that he has seen all fight go out of her. Hopelessness. He knows how it feels. And then he suddenly understands what she's going to do next and he throws himself forward, pushing through the crowd of people who are reaching for her. Before she can rip free the nightlock with her teeth his hand closes over the little pocket at her shoulder where it's hidden. Her teeth bury themselves in the back of his hand, but he doesn't let go. The tender, new skin there breaks and blood gushes down his arm. He has no time to stare at it, because Katniss tries to get free and screams at him to let her go. It's the first time since _forever_ that they are really looking at each other. Up close he can see the burn marks on her skin matching his own. “I can't,” he tells her and hopes she'll understand. 

_For Prim,_ he thinks and watches as she is dragged away.

_For Prim._

***

“Why did you stop her?” Dr. Aurelius asks him that evening. 

They are sitting in a stark white room, facing each other. His skin is tingling from his last treatment. He feels unhinged and insecure. “She wanted to kill herself.” Peeta does think that it should be obvious.

“I know, Peeta. That is not what I was asking. Why did _you_ stop her?”

This is about his messed up memories of her? “Nobody else would have reached her in time. I could see what she was going to do.”

“I see.”

Peeta isn't sure that's true. He leans back in his armchair and stares at his bandaged hand and admits: “I didn't want her dead.”

The doctor nods and keeps watching him with a thoughtful expression, making him nervous and self-conscious. “What do you think happened out there?” he asks him.

This time Peeta takes a moment to think about the question and all the possible answers, before he says: “I think she did it for her sister. I think she was tired of being used.”

“Why do you think that?”

 _Because I'm tired of being used._ He doesn't say it out loud though, but shrugs without a word. And really how is he supposed to know what was going on in the head of that girl? Where Katniss is concerned, Peeta has no way of knowing _anything_ for sure. Snow's people had made very sure of that.

For a long moment there is only silence, but it isn't uncomfortable. Dr. Aurelius is very good at keeping the atmosphere comfortable, even when Peeta feels the nervousness is about to break him apart. 

“There is going to be a trial, Peeta. You know that, right?”

“No, I didn't know that.” He sighs. “I expected it, of course. She committed murder.” He is silent for another moment then adds: “Nobody tells me anything these days. Do you think they are scared of her? Scared of me, too?”

Dr. Aurelius leans back to watch him with a carefully neutral expression. “I think people are scared for you. Those who know you at least.”

And how many people do know him still? Most of the people who had known him once are dead. Had Katniss ever known him? Had he ever truly known her? He can't be sure. But he thinks he wants to know her.

“How is she?”

“Not well,” the doctor admits. “She wasn't well before today. All the medication...”

It's no surprise. “I think I want to know her,” he says and isn't sure why he thinks he has to explain this to anyone.

***

Peeta follows part of her trial. It's clear even to him that nobody feels particularly happy with the whole situation. Panem needs new leadership. Coin would have filled that role, but she is dead. Now they are about to lose the Mockingjay. 

Katniss is a symbol for most of the rebels. So this is not just a murder trial, because it's the Mockinjay who has commited the crime. People in all districts are trying to understand what has happened. But as nobody really knows her reasons for committing murder in front of cameras and she is unfit to take part in the proceedings, it is actually easier for Haymitch and Dr. Aurelius to defend her. 

Although no one is saying it out loud, some people think, Katniss is an addict who was driven to murder, a traumatized girl who finally snapped.. As far as he knows she is locked away in isolation until they have managed to get her off medication. 

In the end Katniss is proclaimed mentally unstable and in need of treatment.

It draws a tired laugh from Peeta when he hears about it. Because really did people expect any different, _before_ Katniss had a public break down? Have they any idea what she went through?

The news that Katniss will be shipped back to District 12 and Haymitch will go with her is a surprise. So is the news that her mother will not return with her. It seems like exile, another move to get Katniss out of the picture now that she has fallen from grace.

What's in store for him though? Has this new world use for Peeta? Does he want it to?

***

He is getting better. Dr. Aurelius is happy with his progress and Beetee comes to visit him often. “We've managed to hijack you back!” he says and laughs happily one day. It's contagious and Peeta finds himself laughing along, feeling like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He tries to not think about the way the word _hijacking_ still makes him sick to the stomach. 

There are occasional flashbacks and sometimes it's hard to figure out what it is that triggers them. But he hasn't tried to hurt anyone in a while and that certainly is progress. But then Katniss is the one who has triggered his most violent reactions – and she isn't around. 

So he doesn't dare to trust himself yet.

Reality is still blurred sometimes. “Real or not real?” he asks his doctor, when they talk about an incident from his time at school, of Katniss singing in front of other children. Katniss. A happy little girl, not a mutt. Has she ever truly been that way? He only _knows_ the hard and unforgiving Katniss Eveerdeen, soldier, rebel, survivor, victim, murderer, broken symbol.

“I can't tell you that, Peeta. I have no way of knowing.”

“Who does?” 

“How about Delly?”

Peeta shakes his head. “No. She says, she doesn't know about it. So it's not real then?”

“What do you think?”

It's always this way. He has to figure it out himself. It's frustrating and painful – sometimes it makes his head hurt so bad he wants to cry. “I don't know.” But if he doesn't know, who does? It takes him a moment to figure out the answer himself. “The only one who'll know is Katniss.”

Later he meets Annie who is smiling at him wistfully. “I'm going home, Peeta. I'm going back to 4.” She touches her stomach and looks more peaceful than he has ever seen her. “The child should be born in 4.”

It's a happy thought, mixed with the strange feeling of loss. Peeta's memories of Finnick are mostly untouched. The only memories that have been systematically warped are of Katniss, always of Katniss. “I think that is wonderful. It's... wonderful.” He isn't sure why he suddenly feels a stab of pain, why his words sound hollow. He should be happy for her. It's so easy to imagine Annie standing by the sea, a small hand in hers. District 4 is her home, and now she'll return home to have her own little family of two.

“Peeta?” she asks softly, a little anxious.

“I'm okay.” The smell of bread in his nose, decorating a cake, his father smiling at him, his brother patting him on the shoulder, flour getting everywhere. Memories mingle and overlap. All of this is real. All of this was never gone. He remembers. Real. But in the past.

Only now the memory of _home_ begins to hit him hard.

His home is gone, is it? His family is gone. Annie has lost Finnick, but she can still go home and find a life for herself.

“I'm happy for you, Annie. Promise me you'll keep in touch.”

“Of course.” The smile on her face warms his heart, even if his head hasn't quite caught up with that yet. And then comes the question he has been dreading most of all. “What are you going to do now, Peeta?”

What is he going to do? What is he _supposed_ to do? And was he well enough yet to _know_ what he should be doing? “I don't know yet,” he admits. He remembers the smell of the bakery, the laughter of his brothers, decorating cakes. He remembers painting. “I think I'll figure something out in time.”

When Annie looks at him this time, searching, imploring, he wants to shy away from whatever she will see on his face. But she just nods and says: “I'm sure you will. But maybe there is a part of yourself back home that you should try and get back, don't you think?”

 _Katniss._

Fear, anger, pain, loss, confusion. Everything comes back to her. Always her.

***

The question comes up more frequently now. His body has healed, but he isn't whole again, not yet. It seems some people in the new government would like him to become part of the rebuilding process anyway. Other people seem at a loss at what to do with him. He is damaged goods. He's what came before the new order. He's a painful memory of the Hunger Games.

Plutarch tells him he could have a job on one of the councils as soon as he feels up to it. “You should consider some interviews. People always liked you and the loss of the Mockingjay was a shock to some.”

“We didn't lose her.”

“Well. We did in terms of media presence. I hear she is getting better and will soon be able to return home. I'm glad to hear it. I hope she is really getting better.” Peeta thinks Plutarch couldn't care less. Katniss is not useful to his cause any longer.

And Peeta cant help but feel that this may actually be a good thing for her. 

He tells Plutarch he isn't up to it yet and tries to avoid him thereafter. 

Without a purpose Peeta doesn't know what to do with the time on his hands. He stays in his room often, but sometimes the flashbacks hit him the worst when he is alone. So he spends some time with Delly, but she is busy rebuilding her own life. In a few days she will leave to go back to District 13. When he's alone he is prone to dark thoughts. Nightmares catch him whether he's asleep or awake. His strangely impersonal room feels like a cage. A prison. Like the room he was tortured in. So he spends his mornings outside, visiting the gardens of the government facilities. It makes him feel calm and less like a ticking time bomb. It helps to be outside, to have things to look at. 

One morning he settles down on his favorite bench and sketches one of the flowering bushes He's surprised and a little wary when suddenly Gale is standing in front of him. “Hello,” he says to Peeta in greeting. “I was told you're better.”

Peeta isn't sure what he's supposed to answer to that. “I think so.” Seeing Gale brings up very recent memories, memories he doesn't want, so he looks away at the lush greenery around him, waiting for Gale to say something else, to tell him why he was seeking him out in the first place.

“I work in District 2 now.”

“I see,” he says, although he really doesn't. Why does Gale come to visit _him_ then? And more importantly why is he not in District 12? He knows that the relationship – or whatever it was – Gale once had with Katniss had been strained during the last days of the war. Has Gale given up on her now that people think she's crazy?

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know, yet.”

“I thought you might want to go back to your house in District 12.” 

It's a strange thing to say. Of course, Peeta knows the house in the Victor's Village still stands, untouched by the devastation the Capitol unleashed on the district. He knows that Katniss will be living in her own house right there across from the one he owns. Does he still own it? He has never thought to ask. After all the rest of the district is gone. But people are rebuilding. Katniss and Haymitch will be there...

“Have you thought about it,” Gale ask. “Because I have. I've thought about it often. They'll need everyone they can get to rebuilt. But it's for the best that _I_ don't go back.” He pauses. “Do you know why?”

Peeta thinks about it for a moment, not sure what he is supposed to say – what he's supposed to _know_. He shakes his head, when it becomes clear that Gale is not going to say anything without his prompting. 

“I'll always remind her of her sisters death. She'll always remind me of the life that I can never have back.” He leans back “Do you see?”

He has grown still beside Gale, trying to get the pieces of this puzzle together. After a while he relaxes and asks: “What happened?”

Gale exhales loudly. Maybe he had been holding his breath. “I don't know for sure. I'll never know for sure. He takes another deep breath and starts talking.

Peeta is still not sure he likes Gale. He isn't sure he ever liked Gale to begin with. He probably didn't. But when Gale gets up to leave and gives him a wry and a little hopeful smile, Peeta remembers something. He had wanted Katniss to be happy with Gale when he was dead, when he had planned to die for her during the Quarter Quell. He had wanted happiness for her so badly, even if he would not be part of it.

And when he looks at Gale now, he can see that wish reflected back at him through a filter of sadness and bitterness.

“I hope you'll find a place for yourself in District 2,” Peeta says, because it's the only thing he can think of.

Gale nods and tells him: “I hope you figure out where you belong.”

Peeta hesitates, before asking the most important question: “Do you really think I loved her?”

“There is no question about it,” Gale says. “Everyone could see it. You would have given everything for her.” His voice is rough, and Peeta can tell that for Gale these words don't come easily. “I think you still would. I've seen what you did when she...” He stops there, unable to say it out loud, but Peeta can fill in the blanks on his own: _When she murdered Coin. When she tried to kill herself._ “She would have died without you, Peeta.”

***

That night he dreams of Katniss.

She is running after her father, who is holding little Prim in his arms. They are all laughing together and Peeta watches her in fascination.

When he steps towards them, Prim and Mr. Everdeen vanish and Katniss is standing alone in the middle of the school yard. People are staring at her, as one of the children who have lost someone in the latest mine accident. She isn't speaking to anyone. Peeta isn't sure she is really seeing anyone around her, caught up in her own grief. He wants to go to her, but can't. He's rooted to the spot, feeling claustrophobic and panicked. The ground is swallowing him, he's sinking into darkness. 

He's screaming. But nobody even looks at him. Then Katniss walks past him as if she can't see him.

At the last moment she turns and meets his gaze. The last thing he hears before waking is her voice. “Don't leave me, Peeta. Everyone leaves.”

***

“Are you happy here? In the Capitol?” Dr. Aurelius is looking at him with the patient calm look that Peeta has come to expect.

He doesn't hesitate to speak his mind either. “No.”

“Where would you be happy?”

“In a world where none of this happened?” Even he doesn't like how cynical he sounds.

But Dr. Aurelius doesn't lose his patience. “Really?”

“I don't know. It's a nice dream.” But if none of this had happened, would there still be Hunger Games? Or would others have played their parts? Where would he and Katniss be now? Would they be happy? Would she be happy with Gale? Would she be happy alone? He remembers a girl smiling up at her father, a long time ago – a lifetime ago – happy and so vivacious. “I think I remember why I loved Katniss,” he says out loud. He is determinedly staring at the wall and not looking at Dr. Aurelius, who is probably leaning back to listen with a serene expression – the way he always does when he thinks Peeta is making some progress on his own. It's one of the few things about him that irritate Peeta to no end. To break the silence he continues speaking: “She was a happy girl at school. I saw her occasionally about town. She always stood out somehow. Then her father died and Katniss changed.” The memory of giving her the bread is clear and painful, a starving, sad girl in the rain. “She seemed so strong. So amazingly tough. But I could always see the happy girl from before in her. When she was with Madge at school, she would smile sometimes – and always with Prim. When they looked at the cakes in our window.”

There is a pause, because suddenly there are untainted memories of Katniss from a time and place the Capitol hijackers hadn't been able to touch. The doctor isn't asking questions and Peeta is thankful for it. He has to sort through all of his thoughts and memories first. Then he can try and explain.

“She loved Prim so much. Enough to volunteer. Enough to die for her.” He takes a deep breath to add: “Like I would have died for her.”

“Why did you never speak to her before the games, Peeta?”

It's a question he never had an answer to before and he comes up blank now, too. “Circumstance?” he asks back, knowing that Dr. Aurelius will recognize it for the deflection that it is. After a while he adds: “I was nervous, I guess. And she was trying hard to not let people come too close.” And maybe he has never really understood what that meant, but always known it was the case. Katniss has always kept people at a distance. She had cared for Prim and kept her and her mother alive, when nobody else had been there to do it. 

That's how it is. She is the one taking care of others, staying in control, but never letting anyone get closer than necessary. Gale had probably been the one getting closest – and then Peeta himself. Maybe. 

“What do you think she felt for you?”

He remembers the interviews, the Games, the arguments, keeping it together, coming back with fake memories of her, thinking of her as indifferent and cold. Katniss is not indifferent and cold. “I think she did like me in a way. Surviving together _did_ mean something. She was not looking to fall in love with anyone.” She must have seen her mother after her fathers death, wasting away because her love had died, leaving the girls to fend for themselves. Love like that could destroy you. Peeta knew that. “She wasn't looking for love.” Prim is the one who should have had all of that. Love, family, safe life and happiness. _That_ he understands. 

After all it's what at some point he had wanted – still wants? – for Katniss.

Searing pain, almost physical in its quality, takes a hold of him. But Peeta knows his body is alright. His emotions are running haywire. Sadness, confusion, red streaks of hate nearly clouding his vision, but it's all in his head. _She is not a mutt,_ he tells himself, fighting against the false memories and the pain. _She is Katniss Everdeen and I loved her. She is a real girl from District 12 and not a monster and I may_ love _her, the memory of her._

It passes. Faster then it would have only weeks before. His hands are covering his eyes, as if that would have blocked out any of the memories. He has learned to control it. Dark dreams and nightmares of torture can't take hold of him for long now. 

“Have you decided what to do with yourself? What would you like to do? Would you like to paint again?”

“I've painted the bakery this morning. The way it looked when we had many costumers and all of us were busy.”

“How did it make you feel?”

“Like I wanted to see it again. I know it's been destroyed. There is nothing left but debris and dust. Still...” He hesitates for a moment. “I think I would like to help rebuilding.”

His doctor only nods. “Then you've made a decision?”

“I think so. Am I ready?” Will he ever feel sure about anything again.

The man stares at him for a very long moment and then asks the question Peeta has been asking himself for a while: “How do you feel about seeing Katniss again?”

A deep sigh is wrenched from his chest, a breath he hadn't know he had been holding, a weight that had been wearing him down. “I think I want to know her,” he says, echoing his words from weeks before. “I think I do know her. Do you think she will want to see me?”

“I'd ask her for you, but she's not picking up her phone.”

***

He arrives in District 12 on a quiet morning with a transport carrying supplies and a few people who like him are returning home. It's clear to everyone who he is and a little girl who travels with her family is the first who comes up to him to talk. Most of the people returning are miners and their families. Everybody is nervous and subdued, and it only gets worse the closer they get to the district. 

There is nobody waiting for him when he arrives. Haymitch must have known he was coming – if he still manages to pick up the phone in the drunken stupor Peeta expects him to be in. It doesn't really matter. Everyone else seems as lost as he feels and that makes it a little more bearable for Peeta.

It's coming home, but coming home to painful memories and the painful realization that home will never be the same. Peeta isn't sure he can consider himself lucky. His house has survived the destruction, but he's lost so much more. 

The house is as he left it behind. It feels strange to be back. He has never had the time to make this house a home. Now it feels empty and too big.

***

Later he walks down to what once had been the Seem and is startled to find primroses blooming in a patch of grass right in the middle of the rubble. He remembers a blond girl crying for her sister. The day of the Reaping. He remembers. Katniss.

He's walked by her house before coming down here, but hasn't seen her, yet. Greasy Sae is taking care of her and has told him about Katniss and her slow recovery process. “She's getting better,” the old woman says gruffly. “Haymitch's the one you should be worried about.”

Peeta nods but asks again: “How is she really?”

“Just don't scare her.”

So he knows he should probably not go right up to her place and see her just now. It would probably be the wrong thing to do for both of them. But Peeta has learned one thing in all of this: Even painful memories are important and he wants to _know_ her – the real her.

It's easy to make a decision. Primroses will look beautiful in the garden in front of her house.

***

At first they don't talk much at all. 

He is working in her garden again, when he feels someone standing behind him. He looks up and isn't really surprised when he sees Katniss, wearing her hunting gear. She looks better than she did a few days ago, but still pale and a little haunted. “Do you think we could make a garden for herbs?”

“Of course,” he answers, surprised that she would come up to him to make a suggestion like that. _We could make a garden,_ he thinks. 

They start planting the herbs into his own front garden only a few days later. Katniss is still not talking much and Peeta doesn't press it. He has a feeling that Katniss never was much of a talker. But he catches her humming a song to herself while working.

“How is Haymitch?” she asks. 

“Haven't you been to see him?”

She shakes her head. “I haven't been to see anyone.”

“We could go over to look after him later. He was in a bit of a state earlier.”

Katniss nods. There is no question about why Haymitch is in a state either. She knows. He watches her hands at work, finds himself staring at her hair in the sunlight and forgets all about Haymitch. They are damaged – all of them – but maybe he's finding a part of himself again by staring at Katniss. Because he hasn't felt this complete for a long time.

“Have you talked to Dr. Aurelius,” he asks her when they are finished planting, cleaning their hands in a bucket of water. 

“Yes.” 

There is nothing more to say, but the silence between them isn't uncomfortable.

Life starts to fall back into place.

***

A few days later he has a horrible flashback over breakfast. For a moment he can't breath, can't _see_ , only hears his own terrible screams in his head. Katniss jumps out of her chair away from him. His fists are clenched on the table and he makes no move to follow her. 

When it passes they stay where they are and stare at each other cautiously.

Then Katniss settles back into her chair and whispers: “Sometimes the nightmares won't let me sleep.” It's all that is said about his episode while they eat, until Katniss adds a little more calmly: “The bread is delicious, Peeta.”

He's glad he took up baking again and smiles.

***

Once he's in front of his door in the middle of the night. Tears are streaming down her face, her hands are clenched into fists and her eyes are not meeting his own. He has seen her upset before. His memories of their train ride home after surviving the Hunger Games are clear and true. He does know how it feels to struggle with the nightmares they've lived through. 

He ushers her inside, not sure what he is supposed to do. They end up in his barely used living room. His arm is around her shoulders and he pulls her down with him onto the sofa. He holds her while she cries and doesn't ask questions. This is something he remembers. She has come to him for comfort before.

They fall asleep together on the sofa, clinging to each other.

When he wakes up they are lying down. Her head is in the crook of his arm, but she is awake. “Thank you,” she whispers when she finally looks up at him and notices he's not asleep anymore.

“No need to thank me,” he whispers back, feeling like speaking any louder would scare her away like frightened bird. Katniss has proven she is still a capable hunter. She still is a survivor. But Peeta knows now that emotions get to her, scare her much more than violence and war. It makes sense and explains the way she could seem both cold and passionate at times, explains how she built a barrier around herself. He should have known this during the Hunger Games, after the games. Maybe now he can finally learn to understand her.

“Thank you anyway,” she says with a sigh, but doesn't pull away.

It's raining outside and Peeta can hear the soft sounds of raindrops falling against the glass of the living room window. The scrap of sky he can see from his place on sofa is gray. The weather doesn't fit his mood. He feels like spring, blue skies and sunshine, new life breaking its way.

“Nobody ever asks,” Katniss says into the silence.

“Asks what?”

“Why I did it.”

She's talking about Coin. “It was time not to be a pawn in anyone's game,” Peeta whispers, although he isn't sure where this is coming from. Katniss furrows her brow, not pulling away, not saying anything more.

Strangely the lighter mood isn't broken and Katniss tells him suddenly: “I like your house. It's free of ghosts.”

And he realizes that it's true, even for himself. All the precious, even all bad memories of his own family are tied to the bakery and only few people have ever visited him here. His prep team and Haymitch. The outside world never touched this house, while for Katniss her own must be full of memories of the short time she has spent there with her mother and sister.

***

The day the first train arrives at the newly built station and Gale has announced that he will arrive with it, Peeta is assaulted by unpleasant memories of his hijacking. The flashback leaves him drenched in sweat and weak to the knees. Voices of his torturers are painfully clear in his memories: _She never loved you. You only loved her. She never cared for you. She's only a mutt, designed to lead you on._

He forces himself to get up from the chair he is sitting in, get to the bathroom, get cleaned up.

When he arrives at Katniss' front door, he feels vaguely himself again. Katniss is sitting in her kitchen writing in the book the two of them are working on. She looks up and nods at him, but goes back to whatever it was she was writing down. Her eyes are dark and she hasn't slept well either. Buttercup is sitting beside her chair, watching him expectantly. He knows by now that Peeta will scratch him behind the ears the way he likes it best, and will occasionally share food scraps with him.

Instead of _Good Morning_ the first thing slipping out of his mouth is: “You didn't fall in love with me during the Hunger Games. Real or not real?” 

Katniss looks up at him for real this time. She doesn't answer right away, taking her time to think about it. He's seen her do it more often than not since she regularly talks to Dr. Aurelius. “Real. I didn't fall in love with you during the first Hunger Games. I barely knew you after training and I thought only one of us could go home.”

He nods to himself. “You played along for the sponsors.” It doesn't hurt to say it. It is all so clear to him now. She never had a choice to act differently. 

“I think I fell in love with you later,” she continues to speak. “I didn't understand it at the time. I never made my mind up about things. The last thing I wanted was love. People pointed it out to me after I kissed you in that island arena.”

Peeta knows his eyes have gone wide. He hadn't known that.

“I don't know when it happened. I'm not sure I can feel anything anymore now.”

He laughs and it has a bitter edge to it. “I'm not sure I'll ever be able to rely on my memory again.”

Katniss isn't offended, she laughs, too. Then she looks up at him and says: “I'm not sure I should meet Gale today.” But they don't stop their laughter for another while. It hurts and feels good and freeing. People probably still think them crazy or at the very least messed up, and Peeta couldn't care less. They are healing and nobody said that would be an easy, clean or even sane process.

“We'll meet him together.” 

And they do.

***

It takes them month of keeping busy, of keeping each other company, of talking, questioning and working together. But along the way they figure out who they are again. Slowly they grow back together, as friends, as team, as family – and finally as something more. It takes them months to get there, but everyday is worth it in his opinion. They are good for each other. Their first kiss – well not their first, but to Peeta _this_ feels pretty new and different – is initiated by Katniss and takes him by surprise. She asked him to come down to the lake with her, showing him new places in the woods he has never seen before, places that for a long time must have been hers alone and for him hold no memories. He can make new ones here, untainted. They are laughing and joking, talking about the rebuilding, about the changes people are already making, and suddenly she turns around looks at him, considering, and just bends up to kiss him. Not just an awkward pressing together of lips, but a real kiss. 

All thoughts leave his head, the world freezes around them and he feels shock, his stomach turns, his legs feel like wax, but when she tries to pull away, he holds on.

He'll never let go.


End file.
